No Machinery
Required
No Heating Costs
No Size Limits
No Health Hazards
No Problems

New
sales marketing company name chosen by Jim Langlands, who in 1977 invented a simple, easy to follow
method for producing resin laminated safety and security glazing products without any machinery or heating/running
costs (UK Patent 1600847, US Patent 4234533, Canadian Patent 1135166 and others
followed). In addition to applying for patents, it was suggested that a trade mark was
necessary. In the UK registered trade marks were not supposed to be too
descriptive, so after various names containing "safe",
"secure", "sure", "lam", "light", "lyte"
etc had been rejected it was decided to go for surelyte minus the letters
"e" hence the name "Surlyt".

Many
people in the glass industry today are unaware that the very first laminates produced
were liquid cast-in-place laminates. In the UK these laminates were called Triplex
which was also the name of the company which manufactured the laminates. The main
use was in vehicle glazing but they had a drawback, they discolored in UV
light.

In
the late seventies the only one way to make high quality laminated glass
which did not discolor in UV light was sometimes called the pvb or
autoclave method. Depending on the size of the autoclave the cost for the complete
production line in 1980 could exceed five million US$, as it also required a temperature controlled production area which
had to be kept in a near sterile condition in addition to being totally dust free.

But the Surlyt method
required no machinery, could be carried out almost anywhere and required
neither commercial air conditioning nor temperature control. Our adverts at that time said
" Surlyt was as
easy as 1, 2, 3, " Click here to see how easy.

Other
major advantages were that the resin was user friendly, low viscosity, low shrinkage, quick setting
and crystal clear. Like all thermosetting resins, polyester, acrylic and the
rest, there was a shelf life, at room temperature it was twelve months. But we
also supplied a concentrate which had unlimited shelf life regardless of the
storage temperature. The concentrate was inexpensive to ship as it was classed
as non hazardous for land, sea or air freight. All that was required to turn the
concentrate into resin was an open container with a capacity of
approximately 12 Imperial gallons ( 15 US gallons, 45-50 litres ), a paint
mixer/stirrer about 24" ( 600mm ) long, an electric drill+ drill stand and
styrene ( a low cost petro-chemical by product ).
The total
time required to mix a batch was about ten minutes.

Security
glass manufacture with the pvb or autoclave method requires the two glass
surfaces to be almost perfectly parallel. This restricts the range of patterned
laminates to those which have little or no texture. The
color range is small and there are limits, normally about 3" ( 75mm ) to the thickness which may be
produced for high security glazing products.

It
has been said that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.

But none of the ten or so imitators said that they had copied the Surlyt method
of manufacturing laminated glass.

They
all claimed that their method was all their own idea.

Even
those who had copied a copy, or a copy of a copy.

But
none claimed to have developed it before 1977.

So,
being the undisputed first, our new marketing name is 1st Lam

If
the above seems interesting and you would like some information sent to
you regarding Surlyt manufacturing costs for security glass click here.